Flipped
by CreepingMuse
Summary: Damon flipped the coin, but it didn't matter. Everything was decided. Stefan heard Abby's neck snap, and he hated his brother. Character study set during "All My Children." Expanded to a two-shot.
1. Flipped

Damon flipped the coin, but it didn't matter. Everything was decided. He'd play the villain again, let Elena hate him, hurt him, rage at him. He'd take on all her hate, let it curl around his heart and seep into his bones and make him stronger. That was what he did best, after all.

Intentions were bullshit. Elena wouldn't care why he'd killed the Bennett witch, wouldn't accept that he'd done it to save her. And hell, it wasn't as if Abby were _dead _dead, or that anyone had even liked her. No, he'd gone and done the reckless thing again, thrown caution to the wind to save her. Because he was a selfish bastard who would always choose her. Abby, Bonnie, Caroline, Jeremy—he'd kill them all in a flash and sleep sweetly that night if it meant keeping her alive.

Damon had grown accustomed to her hate, craved it in some way. It was better than crushing indifference, better than the faint glimmers of affection that faded away the instant he let his monster show. Damon could deal with that look of disappointment in her eyes, because at least she was alive to look at him, alive to despise him.

It was illogical; it was irrational, but then, love always was. He tried to remember sometimes if it had been this way with Katherine, before he turned and emotions overwhelmed any sense he might have once had. But he couldn't remember. Maybe he'd always loved with reckless abandon. He'd been willing to sacrifice his family, his town, his honor, and his very soul to be with Katherine. Killing a witch was tame in comparison to that burning love of his mortal youth.

He could never be what Elena wanted him to be, never be the knight in shining armor she deserved. But he could be her dark savior, the one who made the decisions that sustained her and then slunk into the shadows. As the coin tumbled in the air, Damon accepted his lot.

The coin was tails, but it didn't matter.

More important than protecting her was protecting _him. _From the first time his mother had put tiny Stefan into his arms and he'd stared with solemn eyes at his baby brother, he'd only ever wanted to keep him safe. Something about him had always been fragile and ethereal, not entirely tethered to this earth. Damon protected him from bullies, accepted the blame for Stefan's childish transgressions and accepted the stripes from Father's belt across his own back. Father loved Stefan more, but Damon had never blamed him. Why wouldn't he love Stefan more, Stefan the Golden, Stefan the Good? Who would choose the mischievous, troublesome brother with the sullen eyes and the smart mouth?

Damon spoiled his brother, and he paid the price. Stefan took, and Damon kept giving until there was nothing left. Only once did he try to keep something for himself: Katherine. And in the end, Stefan won her, too. It was always Stefan.

In the end, Damon did his job too well. Stefan could never live without his brother, never let his protector and guardian slip into the death he so desperately craved. Damon had been weak and Stefan got his way. He'd vowed an eternity of misery, but settled for an eternity of separation. He couldn't bear to watch Stefan's self-destruction. He abandoned his brother to his own vices, accepting that this time, Stefan couldn't be saved. He'd watched from afar, employed spies and subterfuge to observe as his bother swung between the extremes of the Ripper and the Monk, how he loathed the world but hated himself most of all. And Damon's heart broke, but he kept his distance. He couldn't protect his brother.

Damon might have watched for eternity if the lie of Katherine in the tomb hadn't beckoned him back to Mystic Falls; he might have fled immediately if it hadn't been for a pair of dark eyes and a heart with an endless capacity to forgive hadn't been waiting for him there. But he knew Elena would never truly belong to him.

Damon loved her, but it didn't matter. Even after everything Stefan had done, Damon always believed in that golden boy he'd once been. It didn't matter how many people he'd torn to shreds and put back together in grotesque mockeries of life, Damon could only see that beautiful baby he'd vowed to protect. He needed to believe in the lie of Stefan's goodness as much as he needed to believe the lie of his own evil. Because that golden boy deserved Elena, and she deserved him.

Damon wanted her, wanted her touch and her respect and maybe even her love, but Stefan _needed _it. Without someone like Lexi, someone like Elena, tying him to the mortal coil, Stefan couldn't stay grounded, couldn't remember what was real and true and important. He'd lose himself again in the blood and the rage and the revenge and Damon would lose him. Just as he could bear her hatred, Damon could bear her loss. Oh, it hurt. But not nearly as much as losing Stefan would.

And it was still true: Damon didn't deserve someone like her. He couldn't be anything other than what he was, couldn't pretend that human deaths and concerns mattered. Because a blood bag could never compare to a warm, pulsing jugular on a sweetly perfumed neck, and _nothing_ could compare to the utter control and release as the light faded from his victim's eyes. But Stefan could at least masquerade, could convince her and maybe even himself that people mattered, that humans were friends, not food. They could give each other the illusion of happiness, at least for a while. And that was the greatest gift that Damon could give.

He snapped Abby's neck and felt nothing. Collateral damage. The dark savior disappeared into the shadows while the white knight picked up the shattered pieces he left behind.


	2. Hated

Stefan heard Abby's neck snap, and he hated his brother.

The coin was tails; it should have been him to do the gruesome work, to take on Elena's rage and Bonnie's grief. The coin had been an impartial servant of destiny, but Damon could never accept fate, could never let Stefan own his actions.

Damon smothered him. Always had. It didn't matter how Stefan acted out as a boy, how many pranks he engineered, how many sins he committed, Damon always swooped in to save the day. Never in his exceptionally long life had Stefan been permitted to take responsibility for his sins. Damon insisted on being the crusader, insisted on saving Stefan from himself. What he never understood was that Stefan never, ever wanted to be saved.

Stefan lashed out at Damon in every way he knew how—began plotting ways to punish his brother, to free himself from that domineering, painful brotherly love. It was petty and Stefan knew it, but he couldn't stop. By hurting Damon, he could at last be his own man. His heart filled with cruel joy when he saw the look of anguish in his brother's eyes as he danced with Katherine, with the woman Damon loved. Did Stefan want her? She was beautiful and desirable and bold, her laughter like bells and her eyes like dark, heady wine, but he wanted to deprive his brother, to take what he so desperately craved. Damon was determined to take Stefan's pain; Stefan was determined to make Damon pay. Just once Stefan wanted to be called onto the mat for his own transgressions, to pay the price for his wrongdoings. But Damon's crushing, confining, constraining love made that impossible.

Was it love or hate that inspired Stefan to bring the girl to Damon that night by the quarry? Was he afraid to lose his brother or afraid to lose his soul? Did he want Damon to live forever, or did he want Damon to despise him, to withdraw his protection and let him be free? As Stefan bit into the girl's lily white neck, he didn't know. Still didn't, so many years later.

Stefan heard Abby's neck snap, and he hated himself.

He was weak and pitiful. He should have been stronger. If he'd been stronger, he could have done it himself, as he was supposed to, as fate had decreed. But no, he had to try to reason with Bonnie one last time, to find another way. But there was no other way, and in the precious seconds he'd wasted with the little witch, he'd let Damon protect him again, to insulate him from the pain.

Why couldn't he be the man he wanted to be? Why couldn't he claim his guilt, take it deep inside his heart and use it to propel himself forward, learn from it and be better? Why did he let the guilt consume him, devour him, echo in his every thought and dream and deed? Why did he hide from it, hide from it in the blood or in the kill or in a woman's arms?

Excuse after excuse. That the human blood had intoxicated him, that Katherine had compelled him, that Damon had forced his hand. Was he so without free will? No, in the end, Stefan had to admit he was fundamentally broken. There was something _wrong _with him, something that made him wake up in a shower of body parts, grief forcing him to cobble the bits back together into a mockery of life, as though by making his victims whole, he could find that piece missing from his own soul. But even trying to create life out of cruel, brutal death was an abdication of responsibility. He had killed them, and nothing could ever change that, no matter how lifelike they may seem reassembled like Frankenstein's ghastly monsters..

The truth was, he _let _Damon play the villain used and abused his love. It made him feel as if his sins were less, somehow. So Stefan had killed Father, feasted on his blood, warm and tinged with a hint of brandy—Damon had killed Zack. So Stefan had murdered a migrant village—Damon killed Jeremy, killed Ric, killed people he was supposed to protect. Even if the deaths hadn't stuck, intent mattered. Damon's impulsiveness made him feel less culpable. And Damon let him. An eternity of misery, he'd vowed, but he'd really given Stefan an eternity of easy excuses. No matter what he did, at least it wasn't as bad as what _Damon _had done.

Stefan heard Abby's neck snap, and he was relieved.

There was still hope for him, after all. Maybe he could pick up the pieces and be the man he'd once been, the good man he'd tried to be. Maybe he could still earn Elena's love back, beg for forgiveness and make another run at being the kind of man who deserved her. He could turn his back on the blood, let himself feel again, a little at a time so he could bear the pain. Elena could find it in her heart to forgive him, understand that deep down, he'd done it for _her, _to rid the world of Klaus so she could be safe, for once in her life. He wanted so badly to go back to being that man, the man she loved and respected.

But part of him feared it was too late, that Damon had proven to Elena what Stefan had known all along: Damon was the better man.

Damon saved the day but received no thanks, only recriminations. And Stefan let him.


End file.
